Public Interest Groups Ask DC Circuit to Vacate Restoration of UHF Discount
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit should vacate the FCC’s restoration of the UHF discount, said a petition for review filed Friday by Free Press, the United Church of Christ Communications Office, Common Cause, the National Hispanic…
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Media Coalition, Prometheus Radio Project and the Media Mobilizing Project. Many of the same petitioners separately asked the FCC to stay the effective date of the order restoring the discount (see 1705110042). In restoring the discount, the FCC didn’t take issue with the findings that led to the discount being extinguished, but instead said the FCC should have looked at changes to the national ownership cap along with changes to the discount. The FCC “lacks statutory authority” to alter the cap, the petition said, and that makes restoring the discount “arbitrary and capricious,” the petition said. “The decision to reinstate a concededly unsupportable policy provision because future membership of the FCC may decide to take action in a hypothetical future proceeding was arbitrary and capricious,” the petition said. The FCC didn’t comment.